The Cut-Throat Construct and Its Warping of Women: An Analysis of Gender and Performativity in He's Out There (2018).

Slasher films are a nostalgic staple of the 1980s when they once drew mass audiences to the theaters to see brutal murder sequences and policed sexuality; however, over the years, the final girls of those films and interest in the genre as a whole has dissipated in favor of more elevated horror. Yet, even with a space opened for social discourse in horror (e.g. Get Out or Parasite), the patriarchy and its oppression of women remains in which "elevated horror" films break through the gate of toxic masculinity to mass circulation and recognition. In this paper, the overlooked horror film He's Out There (2018) will be assessed for its substantial role in challenging Hollywood's obsession with glorifying men and tokenizing women in horror via this film's empowering depiction of a mother fighting to protect her daughters from a masked killer, often at odds with "acceptable" depictions of feminity. Thus, this paper asserts He's Out There's brilliance in challenging the system of gender's entrenched limitations while demonstrating the consequences of rebelling against "permissible" gendered behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]